Google announced early this morning that they are acquiring Motorola for $12.5 billion. This move appears to be primarily motivated by Google’s need to strengthen their patent portfolio in the face of anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple, and other companies.

Major companies, such as Microsoft and Apple, seem to be doing this a lot these days. Google’s no stranger to this process either, but this is the first time (at least that I can recall) that Google outright acquired a tech company that produces consumer devices.